Premiums, Sampling, and Contests

In today’s economy with consumers looking for every advantage, freebee and such, often little things make a big difference. And that difference may mean them returning to your indoor kart racing track more often.

PREMIUMS
A premium is an item offered free or at nominal charge as an incentive to buy a product. Premiums are used at the consumer level to introduce a new product, increase sales of products, to help meet competition, to improve off-season sales and to gain display space. They are also used to attract prospects to store, showrooms and to your indoor track.

A premium issued at no cost is called a give-away. A premium for which a person is required to mail in a nominal sum together with evidence of purchase is called self-liquidating.

What makes a good premium? In choosing a premium, it is important to define for whom it is designed. Among the criteria are: it should display the manufacturer’s or dealer’s logo; it should be offered at no charge or at a considerable reduction in price; it should not compete with another product regularly sold in the store; it should be easy to stock, store, handle and mail; it should be cleared through a lawyer for its legality and with the post office for mailability.

Premiums can be a strong motivator for setting up dealer displays. They can be used as incentives for dealers to buy a given quantity of merchandise and as incentives for salespeople to meet their quotas. Consumer premiums give dealers a reason to advertise and help build traffic.

Examples of premiums for concession tracks and FEC are: Free soft drink with ticket purchase, buy two tickets, get one free or extra laps, a free baseball cap (on your slowest day of the week) with purchase of two tickets or such. You get the idea.

SAMPLING
One of the best ways of convincing a person of a product’s merits is by sampling or product demonstration. For low-priced, commodity goods such as lubricants, filters and admission products, sampling can occur at the retail level, by mail, on-site at an event or at a trade show. Sampling is particularly effective when a discount coupon accompanies the sample.

OPEN HOUSE
Open houses are a proven way of getting traffic to your facility so they can see what you offer. “Hooks” such as free refreshments, celebrity guests, product demonstrations, etc. are great ways to build traffic. “Media Days” for the local press where print and broadcast media can “race” one another can get these writers and broadcasters into karts, onto your track and your name in the newspapers or on the airwaves.

CONTESTS
A contest is one way of adding to your facility for a limited period of time. With prizes as inducements, contests can get prospects interested in your facility and what you have to offer. In addition, it will also build your mailing list that can be used in the future for other purposes.

Contests prizes come is many forms – merchandise, cash, trips, tickets, gift certificates, etc. When conducting a contest, it is advisable to have multiple prizes to broaden the winner base.

In planning a contest, it is necessary to define the audience you wish to reach (existing customers?, new customers?, former customers?) and offer prizes that will attract the desired audience. Demographics such as gender, age, location can certainly come into play. It is also necessary to make sure that a contest meets all federal, state and local requirements (especially making sure it is not considered lottery). Provisions must be made in advance for adequate staff and facilities to handle responses and a system set up for processing responses.

Indeed, special promotions can be an effective part of the overall marketing mix for your track. They are limited only by the creativity of those who elect to use them.

Reference Source: Advertising Procedure by Otto Kleppner